I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, here in Sintellins (it's how we pronounce our town St Helens). You may have noticed that my public schedule of workshops has been lacking of late... I've been concentrating on building the community art and crafting side of the business. I'm pretty pleased with how it's going.  I currently have AgeUK, Elyn Lodge (st Helens hospital) and Snappy Encounters, a local men's mental health group in the Studio's portfolio...as well as being

It's been a chocker of a week ladies and gentlemen. I was at Seddon ward, Elyn Lodge, which is at St Helens hospital,  on Monday. I work with patients and therapists making crafting part of their therapy needs. The therapy is so much easier to do when patients have something preactical to do...they don't even realise they're doing it 😀 It's so rewarding it does me the world of good too. They are having a summer fair on the afternoon of 25th July, at the hospital, and the pat

A lot of my work these days, involves working in the community delivering craft wellbeing workshops. Which all sounds very nice and it is, I love it, but what is wellbeing and why does crafting work? The term 'wellbeing' generally means having a positive mental state. I don't have to tell you that twenty-first century living is exceptionally complex, we seem to live with stress all around us_ from dealing with traffic on the school run, work deadlines to meet, at the supermar

I just love doing craft club...we have just finished a lovely Spring wreath. Hessian wrapped, fabric flowers and lace.  They did really well and we had lots of laughs making the flowers using a burning technique. The members usually come up with ideas on what they would like to do, such as the fabric flowers, and I come up with a project and provide the materials as well as the learning. I know I've said this before, but I am always totally blown away by what they come up wit

Hello... I've been thwarted by my aging technology and I'm struggling to update my web pages. This 'design your own website' malarkey is not as easy as it seems, and trying to keep on top of all the social media is just to much for my phone. I can however, update the blog! Yay! So until I can get my old notebook working and my phone actually doing what I want it to...the latest workshop schedule for the studio can be found on Facebook and Instagram We have ten different works